Do you think it's the fiercest, richest, most storied and amazing brain medicine you can make with corn or cereal grains?

Then be happy that your whiskey hunting ground continues to grow.

A snapshot of San Diego’s current bar scene includes two new places that emphasize the distilled spirit. There’s a whiskey standby with an unbelievable selection. And cocktologists are responding to the whiskey trend by reviving whiskey cocktail traditions.

Some places to grip a tawny-colored dram:

Aero Club Bar

Over the years it’s been a chancy place to let your guard down (nicknamed “The San Diego Gun and Knife Club” in the ‘60s), a cop bar, a long-haul driver clubhouse and a Yelp meet-up spot... The Aero Club--started by a female pilot, hence the Delta Dart aircraft on the neon sign out front--took off in 1947.

Right now it's gloriously overrun with whiskeys.

Owner Bill Lutzius houses up to 600 brands, I’m told-- those shelves are congested with bottles. I haven’t tallied up the barrel-aged bourbons, the Canadian blends, the Japanese whiskeys, the single malts, the fruity liqueurs, the peaty waters from Scotland and other styles beyond (blech! Irish whiskey). But it takes 50-plus pages to list all of Aero Club's whiskeys (ask for this bound book at the bar).

There are tasting notes in that whiskepedia: For “spicy pepper, green wood and malt…together with a splash of rye whiskey,” find the entry from a top American distillery, Roughstock Montana Whiskey. Get their Cask Strength neat for $13.

Of note: The Aero Club has a jukebox (Johnny Cash), pool table, well-worn booths, whiskey flights, and a paper-lanterns-and-Christmas-lights sensibility. Maxim recently featured it as the magazine's Dive Bar of the Month.

Seven Grand Whiskey Bar

Taxidermy on the walls and tattoos on the hipster clientele, but there’s also live jazz performed at this dusky L.A. import. With two areas for ordering drinks, Seven Grand gives a platform to the whiskey titans: The cocktail menu has Rye Manhattan, Sazerac, Old Fashioned, Kentucky Mint Julep and Whiskey Sour for $10. It's been open since last summer.

Eureka! Burger

If you’re putting out Heinekens and well drinks beware: A burger-centric gastrolounge chain set up shop in a mall, tuned its flatscreens to sports and the soundtrack to Band of Horses. More importantly Eureka! Burger opened in the UTC last month and is forcing the mainstream drinker to step up his game. Eureka! has an above-average selection of American craft beers and American whiskeys: Wine Enthusiast gave the High West Rendezvous Straight Rye Whiskey 96 points.

Eureka! is still fine tuning its lighting, its signage (the hidden front door is over by Jersey Mike's Subs) and its overall beachy gastrolounge feel.

But those are gourmet, dark Marasca cherries. Those are San Diego area brewers on the tap handles (Lost Abbey, Green Flash, AleSmith, Mission Brewery, Ballast Point). And those craft cocktails are made by well-informed bartenders --that guy Brandon does double duty at the Aero Club. At Eureka! he made the smoothest $10 Manhattan I’d ever sipped. There are also whiskey flights here.

See also: Over at the NTC Promenade, the (hard-to-find) Roseville Cozinha is putting up a terrific cioppino Italian fish stew. And its lead barkeep, Cervantes, will ask if you like sweet, spicy, fruity or smoky flavors -- then design you a drink. He did an old New Orleans rye whiskey cocktail recently, the Vieux Carré, for someone who wanted a mellow companion to that spicy sea stew. rosevillecozinha.com.

See also: A 35-seat, golden-skull decorated bar and a great place for your spirit and classic-cocktail education, Noble Experiment puts out a seasonal list of drink suggestions. Recently that included a Gypsy Gentleman—bourbon, lime, grenadine and Fernet Branca. (Designed by Eric Johnson, more on him below.) Noble Experiment's gentleman-barkeep, Anthony Schmidt, delivers perhaps the manliest Old Fashioned in San Diego. nobleexperimentsd.com.